


The Fast Return

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: The Checquy Files - Daniel O'Malley
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8306167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: As it turned out, Felicity had strong opinions on feathered dinosaurs. "It's not even like the feathers make them less scary. A twelve foot tall chicken trying to murder you is terrifying--" Odette dug her fingernails into Felicity's knee "--I would imagine."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tamoline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/gifts).



Odette opened her eyes to see the bathroom ceiling swimming above her, and a hand descending through her bath of biomedical slime to yank the plug out of the tub.

"Hey!" she spluttered, surfacing. 

"Good morning to you too," said Felicity, turning on the shower spray and shimmying out of her pink plaid pyjama bottoms. 

"You do know that there are two bathrooms in this flat, right?" said Odette rising from her bath of goo. 

Now that she was no longer bunking with her thirteen-year-old brother Odette didn't feel the need to sleep in her swimsuit. She was a Broederschap trained surgeon and Felicity was a soldier of the Checquy - not to mention that they'd saved each other's lives half a dozen times over - they weren't exactly shy around each other.

"Alessio grew a pair of lungs in the other shower last time he was here!" Felicity's outraged squawk was drowned out as she stepped under the spray.

"That was an extra-credit project!" Odette reached for the scraper to begin removing rapidly drying biomedical goo from her skin. "And you appreciated those lungs well enough after you were gouged by that Minotaur!"

"Anyway," Felicity said breezily, stepping out of the shower and ignoring Odette's perfectly good point. She turned her well-formed backside to Odette and set about towel drying her hair; Odette blinked, and averted her eyes... this was becoming a problem.

"We're in a hurry--" Felicity's voice was muffled by the huge fluffy towel "--Mrs. Woodhouse called, and Rook Thomas wants us in the office ASAP." 

Felicity wrapped herself in the towel she'd been using to dry her hair, pushed the damp blonde strands from her face, and grinned. "Shower's all yours."

*

Odette and Felicity had been flatmates ever since Odette had become the first Grafter to relocate to Britain full time, and Grootvader Ernst had made it clear that he would _not_ be paying for a luxury suite in a central London hotel.

Felicity had been helping Odette flat-hunt when one of the Pawn's housemates had emerged form a period of hibernation bringing with her hive-minded spiders from a plane of eldritch horror; Felicity's other housemate returned from secondment to Japan bringing with her an annoying new boyfriend. So it made sense for them to look for a place together. 

Felicity had complained about the cost of every place they looked at, to the point where Odette had started to worry that the Checquy compensation package was not everything it had been talked up to be, but once she realised that complaining about the price of housing was a national British pastime she'd joined in with gusto. 

They ended up in a two bed, two bath in Hammersmith with a box room for Alessio to colonise during the school holidays; Felicity was still in mourning for their lost days of room service.

Odette dressed in her bedroom - she was looking forward to actually getting to sleep in her bed once her latest modifications healed up - and she stepped out pulling on her jacket. Not so long ago she had dressed both expensively and stylishly, now what she looked for when shopping was suits that were stain resistant and machine washable; Felicity found it hilarious. 

Felicity was just putting the dog's breakfast down. The day they'd collected the keys Felicity had turned up with a Pomeranian under one arm. "This is Grenadier," she'd said plopping him down, "resist the urge to do any weird Grafter experiments on him." Odette had just about managed not to tell her that the fortunes of more than a few Broederschap members had been made by artificially extending the life-spans of pets of obscenely wealthy owners. In fact, functional immortality had first been achieved in a Parisian Chihuahua. 

"Right," said Felicity, her lips twitching at Odette's ill-fitting suit, which was a bit rich coming from a woman who wore combat boots with eveningwear. "I'll drive, shall I?"

*

As the first Grafter based in Britain Odette might reasonably have expected to be assigned to one of the Checquy's medical or research facilities, but Felicity had told her that the Court took its employees wishes into account as well as their abilities. 

Apparently at the Estate there was a Pawn seven feet tall and covered in armoured plates, but with a deathly fear of violence and a passion for bedding plants he worked as the gardener.

It had surprised Odette to realise it, but after everything she'd gone through during the merger, especially her near death experience with Felicity in Scotland, what she really wanted was to be on the front lines of the Checquy's supernatural war.

Rook Thomas had been unruffled by Odette's request. She declined to assign her to one of the first response teams, on the grounds that neither Odette nor the Checquy at large were ready for that. Instead she offered Odette a position reporting directly to her, investigating supernatural mysteries of particular interest to the Rook. There was one condition: Odette and Felicity came as a pair now; if Felicity refused the job, Odette couldn't have it either.

"It wouldn't do for our first full-time Grafter to be killed during her first week on the job," Rook Thomas pointed out reasonably.

"I don't need a bodyguard," Odette tried to object; hardly any of the Pawns wanted to kill her anymore.

Rook Thomas had raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Think of it as more of a partnership, then."

Felicity, Odette discovered when she tried to apologise for the sideways career move, was delighted with her new position. "Are you kidding? I'm practically the general's right hand woman!"

Odette had never exactly shared Felicity's soldierly worldview, but the Pawn was grinning like a kid told that Christmas was coming early, and Odette grinned back at her.

"Anyway," Felicity had said, looping her arm companionably through Odette's, "who else is going to keep you alive?"

"Oh, _please_ ," said Odette. "You would be blind if it wasn't for me. And, you know, dead."

*

Ingrid Woodhouse was at her desk outside Rook Thomas's office.

"Pawn Clements, Miss Leliefeld," she said.

Odette was an agent of the Checquy but lacking supernatural abilities she wasn't a Pawn, and the term Retainer referred to those with no powers at all which Odette's bone spurs and other implants put lie to, so she remained _Miss_ Leliefeld.

Almost three weeks had passed since anyone had called her Grafter Scum within the range of her enhanced hearing.

"Rook Thomas was required elsewhere," said the Executive Assistant, offering thin folders to Odette and Felicity, "but she left these for you."

Odette flipped the file open; a manifestation on a London estate was spewing out smoke that appeared to compel everyone who came into contact with it to tell the truth.

Felicity exhaled through her teeth. "Truth smoke, that's different."

"At least it won't be dangerous," said Odette; Mrs. Woodhouse clicked her tongue, and Felicity stared at Odette in wide-eyed horror.

*

Felicity stared at Odette in wide-eyed... something.

Odette's belief that the truth smoke wouldn't be dangerous had quickly proved to be naive. The enforced honesty had so far resulted in three attempted murders, a dozen assaults, and as the result of the smoke addled Felicity admitting that they were agents of the top-secret supernatural department of the British government: a literal witch-hunt up and down the staircases of a high-rise tower block. 

Odette and Felicity had pulled the emergency stop on a lift between floors and decided to hunker down to wait for backup. They'd tried to use their coats and jackets to stop the supernatural smoke from getting into the lift, but it couldn't have worked because apropos of nothing and without any input from her brain, Odette had just announced her desire to lick champagne off of Felicity's abdominal muscles.

Felicity stared at her, blinked, and said, "Um."

It was just then that backup arrived and chose to announce itself by banging on the outside of the lift and shouting, "Checquy!"

Felicity jumped up to identify them, and Odette wondered if it was too much to hope that a side effect of the honestly smoke was death. 

*

After the normal and healthy amount of deceit had been restored south of the river and the Checquy assault team had headed back to the Rookery, Odette and Felicity found themselves hanging awkwardly around the edge of an empty playground.

"Um," said Felicity again, "is this champagne idea new?"

For all the heightened emotions and mutual lifesaving that had marked the beginnings of their friendship, Odette hadn't even noticed her developing crush until the night Felicity had gone out for a drink with one of her old team members. The date must have gone badly because Felicity had come back early and spent the rest of the night sulking on the couch and eating an entire box of shop bought parfaits, and Odette had found herself thinking, _that's all right, then._

"It kind of snuck up on me," Odette admitted. Felicity was her flatmate and colleague; the love of Odette's life had tried to kill Felicity and everyone like her. "I hadn't planned on telling you."

"I'm glad you did."

"Yeah?"

Felicity flashed a quick, awkward grin, squared her shoulders and stepped close to Odette. The kiss reminded Odette a bit of the way Felicity had crashed into her life that first day; it was brash and demanding and a little awkward, but then Felicity remembered that it was a kiss and not a military incursion, and Odette remembered to open her mouth and that she should be doing something with her hands other than holding them awkwardly at her sides, and they sort of _melted_ into each other.

They were interrupted by a teenager shouting something obscene, and Felicity broke the kiss to give him the finger, which he duly captured on his phone's camera.

*

They got a taxi back to the Rookery; their legs pressed together the whole way but they managed to mostly avoid eye contact. They delivered their reports to Rook Thomas, who gave them the rest of the day off. 

Felicity went to the gym and Odette went into the bathroom to see if the biomedical slime had drained from the tub, and then searched online for the number of an emergency plumber she hadn't _already_ called. 

Felicity came home clutching a bottle. "I almost got sparkling wine," she said with a cat-that-caught-the-canary grin, "but I wasn't sure if your fantasy was brand specific."

Odette laughed, and reached out for Felicity and the champagne.

*

The second most awkward thing about going out with Felicity was when Odette had to fill out a _Change of Sexual Orientation_ form for the Checquy HR department.

"They just like to have a record of anything about you that changes after a manifestation; eye-colour, sexuality, homicidal tendencies." Felicity smirked, signing her own form with a flourish. "Just write that you wanted to lick stuff off of me even before the estate, and they'll file it away and forget about it."

"I don't think I'm going to write that," said Odette, peering over Felicity's shoulder to see the words _bisexuality exists_ scrawled diagonally across the page. 

The most awkward thing about going out with Felicity was when, because she was technically their line manager, they had to give Rook Thomas those forms to sign.

*

Odette and Felicity had different ideas about what constituted a good date; Felicity had begged the Checquy intranet for recommendations for classy (but, you know, _reasonably_ priced) restaurants, and Odette had gotten used to watching reruns of forensic crime shows curled up on the couch with Felicity.

There was always a weird, stilted moment after sex, when Odette pecked Felicity on the cheek, slipped out of bed, and went to sleep in a bath of biomedical gloop. But they both agreed that the thing with the mysterious, previously unknown plant that had spewed aphrodisiac pollen over them would have been a lot more awkward had they not already been sleeping together.

*

They didn't always work together. Some days Felicity was loaned out to read a crime scene, or Odette was needed at the Apex's medical facilities. Odette had taken it as a sign of how much Checquy attitudes towards the Broederschap had improved that a good three quarters of the Pawns no longer considered death or dismemberment preferable to being operated on by a Grafter. 

Felicity was being escorted to an operating theatre by a Retainer in scrubs who asked, "Is there any chance that you're pregnant, Miss Leliefeld? Because Pawn Chalmers' abilities can, ahem, have an effect on that."

"I'm, er, seeing Pawn Clements," said Odette. " _Felicity_ Clements."

The Broederschap had figured out how to allow two women, or two men, to have a biological child decades ago - but even in those cases the pregnancies didn't just happen _spontaneously_.

The Retainer nodded and while striding along the corridor pulled up Felicity's file on her tablet. "Felicity Jane Clements, touch based psychic abilities. Yeah, she probably hasn't knocked you up." The Retainer smiled brightly and pushed open a door. "You can scrub up in here."

*

Odette adjusted her cheekbones in the bathroom mirror and Felicity, applying lip-gloss next to her, winced. "Do you have to do that?" she complained. 

"Sorry." Felicity looked as nervous as she would if she were attending a formal event with the Court of Checquy, instead of dinner with Odette's father. "He's going to like you," Odette said reassuringly.

"Oh, yeah," said Felicity, "I'm sure he'll just love the _abomination_ who's sleeping with his daughter."

"I told you," said Odette, pulled the front door closed behind them and hearing the lock click, "my father isn't a member of the Broederschap; he doesn't know about the Checquy, he would never have thought of you as a _gruwel_."

"So, he doesn't know about--?" Felicity made a vague but expansive gesture at Odette.

"Well, he knows some of it. He did walk in on me removing my own appendix when I was thirteen, and Alessio's cloned mice have apparently overrun the house in Belgium. But he doesn't know about the supernatural, or what the Antagonists did..." Odette trailed off.

"What should I talk to him about?" Felicity asked a touch too brightly, flagging down a taxi. "Once I've exhausted the subject of Alessio and his mice, that is."

"Well," said Odette, "he's here for a palaeontology conference, so you could talk to him about dinosaurs."

*

As it turned out, Felicity had strong opinions on feathered dinosaurs. "It's not even like the feathers make them less scary. A twelve foot tall chicken trying to murder you is _terrifying_ \--" Odette dug her fingernails into Felicity's knee "--I would imagine."

*

At the end of the meal Felicity went to collect their coats and arrange taxis, and Arjan Leliefeld looked at his daughter with a twinkle in his eye. "Well, she's charming."

Odette managed to turn her scoff into a half-cough. She remembered her first impression of Felicity, and charming had not been it. 

Her father took her hand and said, "I don't know the full story of what happened to Pim, but I know how you felt about him, and if this Felicity makes you happy again--?"

"She does."

He smiled. "Then I find her charming."

*

Odette exhaled heavily and ran her fingernails up and down Felicity's naked back; Felicity shuddered and buried her face in the pillows.

"Don't you have to go draw your bath of slime?" Felicity asked, even muffled by the pillows her voice sounded sleepy and satisfied.

"Um, actually, my new modifications have healed so I don't need to sleep in the bath anymore." Her Uncle Marcel had given her enhanced musculature in her arms to celebrate her new job; they'd most recently been used to haul off a Minotaur that had been trying to gore Felicity to death. "But this flat still has two bedrooms, if you'd rather?"

"Nah." Felicity already sounded half-asleep when she threw her arm over Odette's stomach and buried her face against her neck. "Stay."


End file.
